


Hot & Cold

by aban_asaara



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-10-06 05:43:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17339621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aban_asaara/pseuds/aban_asaara
Summary: Hot drinks by the fire, and her lover by her side. The only thing that’s still cold is Athera’s toes.





	Hot & Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LavellanTheHarellan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavellanTheHarellan/gifts).



> Tumblr giveaway ficlet for [LavellanTheHarellan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavellanTheHarellan), featuring Athera Lavellan and Solas. This was my first time writing Solas and I had a lot of fun writing this! :D

“ _Ow_ ,” Athera exclaims at the touch of the hot cider on the tip of her tongue. “Dread Wolf _fuck_ me, that _hurts_.”

She sets her steaming mug down on the chiseled edge of the hearth, blinking tears away. She’ll be feeling that for a couple of days, at least.

“Impatient, are we?” Solas reproaches her, the words curling around his soft laughter. He readjusts the bearskin around their bodies as she settles back against him, breathing with parted lips to relieve the burn on her tongue. His own mug has been left to cool down on a flagstone, next to the rug where they sit together, in front of the fireplace of her bedchamber.

“I’ve been freezing my arse off in Emprise du Lion for _days_ ,” she whines, wrapping the bearskin more tightly around herself as she shivers against him, “and Skyhold’s hardly better, so excuse me if I’m looking forward to feeling something other than bitter cold.”

He cocks one eyebrow at her words. “Shall I scour the Fade for a fortress in the northern isles, then? Although any such location would have been infinitely less useful in the wake of what befell Haven,” he chuckles.

Heat rises up to her cheeks, and it’d be a relief were it not for the embarrassment. “Sorry, Solas,” Athera sighs. She’s being an arse, she knows, but it has been hours since she passed the portcullis of Skyhold upon her return from Orlais, and the warmth has yet to return to her toes, no matter how tightly she keeps herself wrapped in the bearskin she swept off the bed earlier. She stretches her legs out, willing the soles of her feet to warm against the heat of the crackling fire. “I’m just not made for this southern weather. For their sake I hope whoever lived here before us was hardier than I.”

“Or perhaps they were simply _fool_ hardier. The cold is part of Skyhold’s defenses, after all, as is the terrain,” he points out, though the amused glint does not leave his blue-gray eyes.

“Fine, I’ll allow it serves its purpose remarkably well.” Athera sticks the tip of her burnt tongue out at him, relishing the relief of the cool air on it. “Winter in the Free Marches was never this harsh, though. Even Kirkwall has the Waking Sea to mellow it out.”

Solas looks up from his mug of cider, the steam rising in whirling plumes as he blows on it. “Luckily for Kirkwall, as it has little else going for it.”

“I think I just heard Varric challenge you to a fight all the way from the Keep,” Athera laughs, then tucks her legs back into the skin. The heat was getting almost uncomfortable against her feet, yet her toes refuse to warm up. The surgeon might just have to chop them off in the end. “Still … I’ll never forget when we made camp by the Vimmarks years ago, and we woke up one morning to find the entire forest blanketed in snow. It was— _beautiful_ , all these huge, white clumps weighing down tree branches and the sails of our aravels. I just wish it weren’t so bloody cold,” she finishes, laughing under her breath.

He watches her, something just shy of a smile stretching his lips. “How old were you?” he asks after a moment.

Athera scrunches up her face, thinking. “Ten? Eleven, maybe? Tuelena was still just a little child; she’d never even seen snow before, and I remember Mother had to chase after her with a hat and a pair of gloves.” She pauses, remembering how even the hunters had forwent their usual routine in favor of a snowball fight, how easily the snow had lent itself to moulding a snout and wolf ears. “We got in trouble for building a Fen’harel out of snow,” she explains, chuckling in embarrassment. “It was facing the wrong way, towards the camp instead of out.”

The memory turns bitter in her mouth at the memory of Tuelena bursting into tears when Father had toppled the snow wolf. It feels like so long ago now; Mother long since taken by illness, and Tuelena, now First to Keeper Deshanna, and the rest of the clan caught in the machinations of the Duke of Wycome, too far away for Athera to do anything except exert what little influence she can through missives and messengers.

She draws her knees close to her chest to give herself some countenance, still waiting for the warmth of the fire to deign unthaw her toes. “It’s nothing,” she says when Solas draws her closer to himself, but she snuggles up against him all the same, breathing in the scent of pigment and dried herbs that clings to him; he must have been dreaming while she rode up the sheer incline of the mountain path, for he always seems to know when she’s about to return to Skyhold. “Solas, do you …” She hesitates, unsure what she even wants to ask; she brings the hot cider to her lips and curses under her breath when the hot liquid rouses the burn on the tip of her tongue. “What was your childhood like? You mentioned you were from a small village in the north, but not much else.”

He turns back to the fire, his skin golden in the flickering glow. His gaze is distant, almost opaque in the flames, and when Solas speaks again, his voice is soft, nearly lost in the howl of the mountain wind outside her windows. “I was a rambunctious child,” he finally says, “cursed with the great misfortune of having been born in a place far removed from the rest of the world. I was curious about the world, always up for some mischief. I had no patience for rules or for being told how to do things; I assumed I knew better, and always needed to figure things out in my own way.”

Somehow, her imagination runs swift as halla in the gentle cadence of his voice, senseless fragments falling into her mind: voices and songs in a tongue now lost, pillars the height of ancient pine trees, playful wisps of magic dancing about great white halls. “The Fade,” she blurts out, not quite a question.

He nods once. “I was determined to see and learn as much as I could, no matter what anyone might have to say about it. Traits that turned to impetuousness and arrogance as I grew older,” he finishes, the images in her mind scattering in the blue spark that lights up his eyes.

Athera laughs, breathless without knowing why. “Rambunctious? Impetuous? Arrogant I can see, though,” she teases.

“It is a small mind indeed that will not change,” he answers, one corner of his mouth quirked upwards, “though it is often not without cost: one can only envy how simple the world appears to a child when one has grown old enough to appreciate its intricacies.” He turns back to the flames as he speaks, and his features settle into some indescribable expression. “To see the world and its people for what they are, not what they should be … That would be a blessing.”

Athera blinks, the words spoken as though from some place far out of her reach. For half a heartbeat entire aeons seem to rest between them, thick and still as the ice on the surface of a lake; something like loneliness spiders dark and cold in the hollows of her chest, but Solas turns to smile at her, and the feeling dissipates like morning mists. “Thank you, vhenan,” he says, stirring her out of her thoughts, “for letting me revisit these memories.”

Before she can say anything, he takes the steaming mug out of her hands, then presses his mouth to hers; a faint curl of magic unfurls between her lips, a pleasant tingle lingering in its wake as it leaves the tip of her tongue and the roof of her mouth healed—and the rest of her body thrumming with sudden, nearly painful desire.

His breath is warm and still sweet with cider as he lets their lips part. Athera curls her fingers around his collar and tugs him back into another kiss. “You mean you could’ve just done that all along?” she says between their mouths, but there is no reproof behind her words, only a new hoarseness to her voice.

The glass of cider clinks as Solas sets it down onto the stone slab of the hearth. “Well, the lesson needed a little time to sink in,” he chuckles, then pushes her back onto the thick rug. Athera offers no resistance, untangling her legs free from the bearskin so that he can better settle on top of her, the glimmer in his eyes sending her heart thundering in her chest, the cold long forgotten. “Now, let’s see about getting you warmed up once and for all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hello on [Tumblr](https://aban-asaara.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
